Joyful Noise

About two years after Claude Deppa joined 'Tarantula', he invited me to play with him on guitar in his new band 'Five Funky Fellas', featuring Louise Elliot on sax and flute, Joe Cooper on drums and Oren marshall on Tuba. Our first gig was in the Barbican Foyer. It was a great chance for me to play funky 70's style guitar.

Shortly after that I was asked to dep on piano for Claude's 'African Music Explosion' at the Purcell Rooms. This was to be the start of a great association with African music and musicians.

Through Claude I met Joyful Noise promoters Biyi Adepegba and Barbara Pukwana. I played on Claude's album 'Toi Toi' (Jika Records), and we played regularly at the South Bank.

I also got the chance to play with the 'Lucky Ranku & Pinise Saul Band'. This was a great experience. Like Claude these artists are hugely original and play straight from the heart. We played in Istanbul at 'Babylon', and with the 'African Jazz Allstars' and Pinise Saul at the 2005 Capetown Jazz Festival. We also supported Pharoah Sanders at the Barbican.

I got the chance to go to South Africa for a second time with a quartet of Claude, Brian Abrahams and Sam Jenque. We played at a festival in Johannesburg featuring some great South African, British and American musicians. This musicians were all great free improvisers and I met Bobby Zankle of the Cecil Taylor Unit. As he said, "African music lends itself really well to the free stuff".

I also went to Holland with South African band Igagu and did one gig with vocal legend 'Thandi Klaarsen'.

Most recently I have been playing with Lekan Babelola and his extremely funky mixture of Yoruba and English musicians, Afrobeat and some!

Finally, Joyful Noise gave me a great gig with the World Jazz Trio. A chance to perform my compositions on a big stage within the world music scene.

All this wonderful music has been quite an influence on me, the way I play and even on such compositions as 'Jump in the Sky' (World Jazz Trio) and 'No Cake' (Battersea Studio Projects).

Here are some samples of me playing with these ensembles. Unfortunately there can be no free downloads in this section as these did not involve my compositions but you can buy material from these artists, available from Jika Records.